Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Thank you for this opportunity to explain how Air Canada failed in its duty to comply with the Air Canada Public Participation Act by selling its overhaul centres to Aveos.
Let us look back in time to explain why the Conservative federal government of the day included another measure in section 6(1)(d) which reads as follows:
6.(1) The articles of continuance of the Corporation shall contain
(d) Provisions requiring the Corporation to maintain operational and overhaul centres in the City of Winnipeg, the Montreal Urban Community and the City of Mississauga;
To protect and reinforce that clause, the government added section 7a) and b), which read as follows:
7. The Corporation and its shareholders and directors shall not
(a) apply for continuance of the Corporation in another jurisdiction; or
(b) make any articles or by-laws that are inconsistent with the provisions included in its articles of continuance pursuant to subsection 6(1).
As another guarantee, section 2(3) states:
2. (1) In this Act,
(3) In the event of any inconsistency between this Act and the Canada Business Corporations Act, or anything issued, made or established under that Act, this Act prevails to the extent of the inconsistency.
To better understand the meaning of the Act, we must return to April 12, 1988, when Don Mazankowski, Conservative Deputy Prime Minister and former Transportation Minister, introduced Bill C-129 in the House of Commons. At that time, the Deputy Prime Minister stated that the operational and overhaul centres in Montreal, Winnipeg and Toronto were fundamental to the success of Air Canada, that the company fleet maintenance would continue to be done at those locations, and that for any change in the location of Air Canada maintenance activities the act would have to be amended.
This says a lot about the meaning and the spirit of the Act.
Liberal and NDP MPs of the day, John Turner, Brian Tobin, Ed Broadbent and David Orlikow, were not at all convinced by the Conservative government’s guarantees to employees that they would keep their jobs at Air Canada's operational and overhaul centres. The MPs argued that the Conservative government was trying to deceive the residents of Winnipeg, as the federal elections were held shortly after the act was introduced. In order to convince MPs and voters about the guarantees included in the act, the Conservatives worked with senior government officials and experts to clearly define both the intent and the spirit of the act in order to eliminate any ambiguity and prevent any authority from circumventing the act.
Janet Smith, then Deputy Minister of Privatization and Regulatory Affairs, along with Doug Lewis, general counsel, appeared before the legislative committee to explain the spirit and essence of the act. They stated that what is enshrined in law is as tight as you can get it and if they are in sections of continuance, it requires two-thirds of the shareholders to change that.